Dolores tried hard to say she did know him; but whether maiden modesty, the fear of betraying her secret, or the dread of her friend's surprise at her long silence on the subject, lamed her tongue and kept her silent, it would be hard to say. She was so silent that even Bessy, absorbed as she was with her Admirable Crichton, paused for a moment to look at her.

"What is it, Dolores?" she asked. "You were so flushed just now, and now you are so pale-what is it?"

"Nothing; a slight faintness; it will pass away," replied Dolores falteringly. She wanted to lay her head down upon the good girl's bosom and cry, and tell her all her troubles. If only Bessy had been a little suspicious! But how could she be? "Shall I leave the books, dear? It may amuse you to look at them when you feel better; I must go now."

Amuse her to look at them! When Bessy was gone Dolores took the books, and locking the door of the little room appropriated to her use, knelt down and opened those wonderful treasures. She could not have looked at them in Bessy's presence; a thousand feelings would have prevented this; now she opened the books and looked lingeringly and lovingly over them. She longed to steal one of the photographs, but dared not.

The summer had come and gone, and the early spring found Dolores still governess to Mrs. Dalrymple's children. She had quite regained her old cheerfulness, and was as bright and happy as when we saw her plunging her face into the dewy violets at Kingsmead Manor. She heard, it is true, less and less of St. Vincent, for Bessy Dalrymple (whose second season it now was) was so immersed in gaieties that she found few opportunities of running to the schoolroom for a chat with her old friend and schoolfellow.

Dolores liked her life. She liked her early morning walk to Lowndes-square whilst as yet the fashionable world was still asleep; she liked her pupils; she liked her walk home, when she caught passing glimpses of the gay world, and wondered at the lovely faces she saw looking out of clouds of muslin and lace, fresh, rosy, and refined, as though sin and sorrow were not and never had been. She dreamt her young dreams and saw her bright visions, and no ripple of envy or doubt or mistrust ever troubled the calm surface of her soul. She was so much a child, and yet so much a woman, that she played with the lovely toys of her imagination, and regarded not the outer world.

The last summer holidays she had spent at Kingsmead. Aunt and uncle Skeffington petted and spoiled her as of yore; Robert Stapleton came daily to see her, bringing her fresh flowers (though the old garden at the Manor was all ablaze with blossoms) and books and music.

"Dolores," he said, the night before she left, "though I have spoken no word of my love, I am still the same; my feelings are unchanged."

"And mine too," she answered, the brightness of her smile for a moment dimmed. That was all.

As her aunt came to kiss her that night in bed, "We shall miss you, birdie," said the sweet old lady, bending over her, as she lay in the white lavender-scented sheets, a very rose of Sharon; "we shall miss you sorely at first, my dear."

To which Dolores made answer by hugging her aunt in an ecstatic manner, half-crying as she thought her pleasant holiday was over, and yet half-happy at the idea of getting back to town and of soon hearing news of St. Vincent again.

"I have sometimes thought of late," began Mrs. Skeffington once more, glancing at Dolores almost timidly as she lay back in bed, her hair somewhat dishevelled and her face slightly flushed from the strict embrace wherein she had so lately held that comely form; "I have sometimes thought, my love, that you would come and settle amongst us altogether."

"I am coming next summer, aunt," said Dolores, glancing away from the question.

"For good, birdie ?"

"Perhaps for bad, auntie; who knows? or perhaps only for indifferent; and that is dreadful, you know-neither hot nor cold, as St. John says."

"Well, you've time enough, my dear; you're barely twenty yet, and surely that's young enough to marry."

"I'm ower young to marry yet,'" sang Dolores from amongst her pillows, with bright girlish glee.

"Well, good-night, and God bless you, my girl; you know this home is always happy to have you."

Dolores nestled up to her aunt again, and the soft tears were on both their cheeks as they kissed once more and parted. In after-days Dolores was often to think of those simple kindly words, and of her own jesting reply. But the time had not come yet. Thus we speak darkly, knowing not what we say; but the future reveals to us all the import, all the meaning of those words so lightly spoken, and in them we seem to read a prophetic foreshadowing of truths unguessed at whilst we uttered them.

CHAPTER V.

SUSPENSE.

"DOLORES," said Bessy, "St. Vincent has arrived."

It was early spring once more. The buds were thick upon the trees, and only needed a day of sunshine and south wind to bring them out in all their fresh young beauty. There was a fire in the schoolroom, but Dolores drew a long shivering breath as she turned quickly round and made a sudden dash at the coals with the poker. Her back was turned to Bessy, who, in her exuberant joy, caught Dolores round

the waist, and kissed her pale cheek as it came up to the level of her lower horizon again.

"Won't it be delightful to go out with him everywhere, and see all the prettiest girls making love to him?" cried Bessy rapturously, "and all the mammas paying court to him" (you see, even Bessy was not so simple as she had been); "and he the handsomest and richest and best-born and best-bred man of the season; for he must be all that, you know, after travelling abroad for so long!"

“Does travelling abroad make people so rich and so handsome ?” said Dolores. "Then I will buy a portmanteau to-morrow."

"Ah, but you know what I mean. He was rich and handsome before; but now he will be so polished, so courtier-like, so delightful-"

"That all the young ladies will make love to him?" said Dolores, just a little coldly. "Well, I pity the young ladies."

"Yes; for he cannot marry them all. Indeed, I don't mean him to marry at all for a year or two" (Dolores' lip curled ever so slightly. "You don't mean him!" she said to herself); "and then he must fall desperately in love with the beauty of the season-an heiress, of course; and-stop!” cried Bessy, "how stupid of me! why, Lettice Knyvett is the girl. She is rich and young and beautiful--the very thing! and she is to be presented at the next Drawing-room. O, won't it be delightful, Dolores ?"

"Delightful," answered Dolores dreamily.

And so Bessy talked away, never thinking she could wound her friend by thus shaking these purple rags and gilded baubles before the young governess's great calm brown eyes; never dreaming that there was aught to sear or irritate in all this jubilant prosperity and worldliness. Nor indeed was there to Dolores. She lived in a world above all this sort of thing. A world of her own, full of noble men and graceful women; where the talk was courteous and gentle, not frivolous and worldly; where roses bloomed and lilies grew, and scorn of greed and gold flourished; where pettiness and meanness could not spring up even as weeds; where men and women loved each other, and where all that was great and good and noble had an abiding place.

This girl, who was born with the instincts of a princess (when there were princesses), had a touch of poetry about her, a gift of magic, which at one stroke of her wand changed this prosaic workaday world into an enchanted universe. What wonder that she so well loved to dream? What wonder that she shrank instinctively from letting the rude breath of the outer world blow upon her enchanted palace? Some dim mysterious rapture of awe, of love, of imagination made it holy to her. Sh put off her shoes from off her feet when she entered that sacred region, and closed her eyes in a state of bewilderment which was something like religious ecstasy.

It was impossible for her now to tell Bessy that she knew St. Vin

cent; that she had known him. It pleased her to think of him walking like some young Sir Galahad scatheless through the temptations and flatteries and allurements of the world, to discover his true love at last. To him (she told herself) "a simple maiden in her flower" was "worth a hundred coats-of-arms." There was no conceit in this. He loved her; he would always love her. The essence of love was its eternity. To him all accidents of birth or station would be simply nil. To her they never assumed the form of tangible facts; they were as nothing; they could not weigh in the balance, since their very existence was so unimportant as almost to escape notice.

Of herself in all this she thought little, of her love much; so much, that she put herself in the background and was content to wait. It was almost joy to her to put off that meeting when they should be revealed to each other, never to be parted again.

And so she worked on in her cheerful little schoolroom, her heart full of songs and sunshine, her eyes bright with a liquid brightness that told of the happy life within.

Sometimes Bessy and Lettice (Mrs. Dalrymple's niece) would come to afternoon tea in the schoolroom, and Dolores would look at the two girls, and listen and wonder. Their marvellous flow of small-talk about their balls and their bouquets, their partners and their toilettes, their engagements and their bonnets, amused her beyond expression. Bessy was the louder of the two, and sometimes would raise a slight flush of offended dignity on Lettice's fair pure cheek, by a whispered allusion or a too broad compliment repeated with more frankness than tact. Lettice was one of those perfectly beautiful, helpless, useless women who keep up the traditions of woman's sovereignty. She was always perfectly dressed, and calm and self-possessed; not in the least elated by her marvellous beauty, though perfectly conscious of it. She had never done a wild, or unlady-like, or unconventional thing in the course of her carefully hedged-in life; she had never been rude, or cross, or impatient to anybody; she could not be expansive or clinging, but she was gentle and considerate, pure and soft, and (in a certain narrower smaller sense) womanly. She would never love anyone with devotion or passion; she would never endure anything for anybody; but she would always be dutiful and well-behaved. She was rich, and an orphan. She was beautiful, absolutely beautiful, and young. Some people said she was like moonlight, so calm and pure and lovely; but it was well known that her fortune was no moonshine; and she had adorers by the score, where other girls, perhaps equally pretty but not equally rich, had them only by units. All men liked her, she was so beautiful and gentle; and notwithstanding her loveliness, no woman spoke ill of her. Some people said she was insipid; others declared she had no expression; but, after all, do not our favourite pictures and statues show us the same faces and attitudes day by day, and do we therefore get tired of them? There was no poetry about Lettice

beyond that superficial poetry which perfection of form and feature always gives; there were no subtle changes in her lovely face; no deeper emotions; no thought or inquiry in those calm beautiful eyes; no light or shadow; no varying caprices and flickering waywardnesses about her. She was almost a creature "too good for human nature's daily food;" but it was a goodness of that negative sort, which, if it makes no enemies, excites no enthusiasm.

To Dolores Bessy said: "Everyone wants St. Vincent to marry her; but he says she is cold, and that he never could be on familiar terms with so chilly a divinity."

"And she,-does she love him?" asked Dolores, blushing at the sound of her words.

"O, no; but if he offered to her, I think she would accept him. He is an excellent parti, you know.”

"No, I didn't know," replied Dolores; then added hastily, "but I know nothing, you see, of your-your world."

"St. Vincent paid her a great deal of attention when we were at Parklands" (that had been when Lord St. Vincent came of age, the accounts of which Dolores had eagerly read in the papers); "but still he does not seem to care for her. She was by far the most beautiful person there, and everyone was saying what a splendid couple they would make. St. Vincent knows, of course, that he would not be refused if he offered to her."

"Does he ?" cried Dolores angrily, all the woman rising rebellious in her at this. "Then if I were in Miss Knyvett's place, I would let him see that he was mistaken! What right has he, or any man, to say that of her or any other woman? Ah, if I were in her place, I would refuse him point-blank, as a punishment for his conceit and vanity."

"But Lettice will never do that; she doesn't flare up like you do, Dolores; she will accept him, I'm sure, if he only offers to her. Papa and mamma and all wish it, though I think it's a pity to bind him down so soon; but then she is so beautiful and so rich, that it makes a difference, you see."

But Dolores saw nothing: she was gone.